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25 LLNE News: Newsl. L. Librarians New Eng. 1 (2005-2006)

handle is hein.lbr/llnews0025 and id is 1 raw text is: ivews Newsletter of the Law Librarians of New England Volume 25, Number 1, 200512006 Print vs. Electronic - What's a Legal Research Trainer To Do? By Susan Vaughn Recently the director of our first year research and writing program turned to the library for some help on the subject of teaching print versus electronic research. She wanted real-life examples that demonstrated when using a print resource would yield an answer more quickly or thoroughly than online. She felt that only concrete examples could convince the web-wedded first year students to consider print resources their friends. First year students at Suffolk are required to do their first research assignment in paper and we hold training labs in the hopes of demystifying paper reports, digests, statutes, and Shepards (at least to some extent). Despite our best efforts, on the day their Westlaw and Lexis access is upgraded, we see many students dancing a little jig. I don't know if delaying access to the electronic resources makes them that much more attractive but I do know that after getting full access to online resources it is hard to convince many students to use print resources. Of course, probably the best way to teach legal research would be to allow students to become more familiar with all types of resources by requiring more substantive legal work during their stint in law school. This could come in the form of more practicum requirements or more emphasis on actual legal problems in the regular curriculum. But until we have a law librarian as the dean of our law school, my guess is we shouldn't start drawing up lesson plans to support this type of program. So what can we as legal research trainers do in the short time we are allotted? I did show the trainers in our first year writing program some examples of how the index to the print statutes can sometimes supply an answer very quickly, how you can find older law review articles using the print Index to Legal Periodicals (we don't have access to the online retrospective collection1), and how an MCLE publication could help by giving you commentary, the top cases, the statute and regulations on point, as well as forms and case-checklists, all in one place. One thing I learned by putting together a presentation on this topic is that by using some features of Westlaw and Lexis, you can find similar resources, if you know where to look. For example, the statutory section on joyriding (my example) was hard to find by running an online search in the statutory database because of the wording of the statute but if you add the MCLE treatise on Massachusetts Motor Vehicle Offenses, available on Westlaw, Lexis, and LoisLaw, you can easily find the statutory section and additional information. But then the question is, will our students know enough to check another resource be it online or print, if their online search isn't successful? Shouldn't we be teaching an overall theory of research, rather than print versus electronic? After all when we do research, it isn't a battle but a synergy of resources (or at least it should be). How do we get students excited about research, whether print or electronic, excited enough that they take the time to explore the various sources of legal information? I would be interested in hearing from other librarians involved in the teaching of legal research, including firm Continued on p. 10 LLNE News, Volume 25, Number 1, 2005 1

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